During his term as our governor, Bill Ritter promoted a “New Energy Economy,” and made considerable progress. Electric utilities will increase their supply from renewable sources to 30 percent. A wind-turbine manufacturer chose to locate in Colorado. Homeowners with solar panels can now run their electric meters backward. And there’s more in the 57 energy bills he signed.
However, green-energy production often requires obscure substances like dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium, yttrium and indium. By and large, they’re produced in China, which has announced plans to do more of its own manufacturing of green-energy equipment. Thus, exports will be curtailed.
Doubtless this topic came up last week when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the White House, but it’s unlikely that China will decide to cut prices and increase exports of these important elements.
So therein lies an opportunity to grow Colorado’s economy. We abide in a state founded by and for mining. Just look at our state seal, with its crossed hammer and pick.
From what I’ve read, actual production of these green-energy elements would likely cause more environmental opposition than uranium production, a new trans-mountain water diversion and a lynx-habitat alpine ski resort, all put together. As one article at hand puts it, “mining them and processing them into materials useful for making wind turbines, electric vehicles, batteries and iPhones typically requires open-pit mines and odoriferous smelting operations.”
Do not despair, though. There’s a way to juice the state’s economy without befouling the state’s environment. We can do that by following Colorado tradition.
Any honest historian of the mining industry will tell you that the biggest profits are not made by actually hauling rocks out of the earth, but by swindling investors. Or, as Mark Twain — a close observer of the Comstock rush during his days in Virginia City, Nev. — is reputed to have said, “A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.”
The most common hustle was known as “salting,” which means taking some good ore and inserting it into the claim you’re trying to get suckers to invest in. The crudest method was to load a shotgun shell with pellets of gold or silver, rather than lead, and discharge it into the working face of the prospect hole. The investor could pry out a few rocks, get them assayed, and believe he was going to get richer by buying into the mine.
In the booming Leadville district of 1878, William H. “Chicken Bill” Lovell took rich silver ore from Horace Tabor’s Little Pittsburg and planted it in his barren Chrysolite claim. After examining the find, Tabor instantly bought it and an adjacent claim for $10,000.
Business was slow in 1884, so Cañon City merchants paid two prospectors to dig about 20 miles north of town, and at the bottom of their 18-foot hole, salt the ground with gold dust. The “discovery” was heavily promoted, and while the rush lasted, Cañon’s commerce boomed.
A few years earlier, in 1871, two men showed up in San Francisco with a bag of diamonds and rubies which they claimed they had found in northwestern Colorado. When potential investors were taken to the site to look for themselves, they found even more gems. They were salted, of course, as federal geologist Clarence King discovered when he investigated. But the two “discoverers” made off with at least $600,000 from investors.
So, no, we don’t need to actually mine for indium or terbium. We just have to salt a few claims, announce that we have rich deposits, and then mine the investors. That will rev up our economy. Fraud isn’t just a national pasttime; it’s also an old Colorado tradition.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@ ) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
